Assault on domestic species, whether real or perceived, has been the primary source of ire for both. But the dingo bears the additional accusation of having driven Australia’s native Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) and Tasmanian devil from the mainland some 3,000 years ago.

A new study, however, challenges that claim. Published in the journal Ecology, the paper suggests that humans and climate change had more to do with the decline of the thylacine and the devil than did the dingo.

The scientists reached that conclusion after designing a dynamic mathematical model system with the power to simulate interactions between predators, such as dingoes, humans, thylacines, and Tasmanian devils, and herbivorous marsupial prey, such as wallabies and kangaroos. They then coupled those models with reconstructions of climate change and the expansion of human populations in Australia several thousand years ago (the late Holocene). continue reading…

"Service Animal" Scammers (New Yorker): An increasing number of your neighbors have been keeping company with their pets in human-only establishments simply by claiming that the creatures are their licensed companion animals and are necessary to their mental well-being.